Unless something very surprising happens, the Golden State Warriors will move on to the conference finals following a 98-78 win over the Memphis Grizzlies to take a 3-2 lead in the series.
Tony Allen didn’t play, so the Grizzlies didn’t have to think about the whole defense-offense rotation. It didn’t matter. Without Allen, there was nothing they could do to slow down the Warriors, doing an excellent job on both ends of the floor and most importantly, shooting very well. Stephen Curry finished with 18 points (six 3-pointers), 5 assists and 6 steals. Klay Thompson led the Dubs with 21 points, hitting 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. Harrison Barnes with 14 points and Andre Iguodala scoring 16 were in on the fun.
The Grizzlies, without their ability to get some running going in their game and not hitting their open shots early on to try and open up some space, looked miserable when the ball was in their hands most of the time. They shot just 39.8% from the field and 26.7% from beyond the arc. Their bench gave them absolutely nothing (17 points, a lot of it in garbage time) while Marc Gasol led the way with 18 points and 12 rebounds, but he was pretty much alone in it. The Warriors didn’t mind letting him do his thing while shutting down the others.
It was a nice little run for the Grizzlies, even taking the lead in the series after game 3. But sometimes what happens in the regular season translates well into the postseason. The Warriors have a deeper, better team, with the ability to switch things up when it doesn’t work. The Grizzlies are a lot more one-dimensional, so once Kerr found a way to counter the whole Allen on defense thing, it never looked close again.